My free SFZ piano libraries

Sofia_MZ I’m not a samplist (not even a would be samplist). I created these libraries as a birthday present for my father. I even cajoled a teacher into giving me extra credits for them. As far as I’m concerned, they basically fulfilled their reasons to be.

Well for a first-time amateur pursuing a personal side project, you've managed to do an absolutely extraordinary job. You should be quite proud of your accomplishment.

Sofia_MZ I’d welcome some feedback from those who tried (and perhaps liked) my pianos, to help me set my priorities according to the needs of an actual user base.

I’d like to know which improvements you’d like to see in the next version and why.

Speaking for myself, my number one request would be a soft/una corda pedal, even if it's only simulated. I play mostly classical music and rely on this feature quite a lot. Very few virtual pianos have real recorded una corda samples, and if you haven't already sampled them, it's probably not realistic to go back and capture now. But in the absence of the real thing, I always prefer to have a simulated version than none at all. It could just be a slight reduction in volume and (if possible) a subtle timbre shift (slightly softer).

After that, half-pedaling would probably be my second priority. Repedaling is nice, but I personally don't find it absolutely essential. And I don't really care about extraneous mechanical sounds like pedal and key noises (I always shut them off if I can), but some people seem to find these important.

Sympathetic resonance is a huge plus if done well, and can really make things come alive, but I gather it's extremely hard to implement so I wouldn't expect you to attempt this unless you are really up for a challenge.

Anyway hope this is helpful.

Sofia_MZ Also, let me know which of my pianos you liked best

Honestly, I find them all excellent in their own way, but here are my overall thoughts:

C. Bechstein: This is probably the most unique and special sounding one to me - it has a very gentle and sweet tone that is still very rich and full, with a wonderful atmosphere around it. It's also captured with a bit more resonance that the other models which I think works to its benefit.

Bluthner. This is my other favorite. I've always loved the tone of Bluthners and this is an exceptionally good one, still in excellent condition but with a slightly vintage feel. Also a very sweet-toned instrument with a good amount of character and individuality.

Fazioli This is an extremely clean, neutral and modern sounding piano, superbly captured. I don't normally like Faziolis, often finding them excessively clinical and hard sounding, but this one has a touch more warmth and feels much less severe in tone than ones I've encountered in the past. Not a whole lot of individual character compared to the others, but it provides a really nice, neutral palette to work with, and I can see myself playing on this a lot.

Bosendorfer Very faithful and accurate capture of the signature Bosendorfer Imperial sound, which has a very clear, consistent and sculpted tone. Nice powerful bass. Superbly sampled and feels great to play on.

Steinway This is probably the one I'm least drawn to personally, if only because I already have several excellent sounding Steinways. But this is still a very compelling instrument with a lovely rounded tone, slightly aged sounding but still in very good condition.

dore_m Thanks for the pro's perspective.

I'd need to take a look at your scripts, but half pedal seems doable.

I don't even want to think about scripting sympathetic resonance.

jdg78 Thanks for your articulate feedback. Yes, the needs of classical pianists are different. Are there many in this forum?

Indeed, except for the commercial VSTs, I don't know of any free piano that ships with una-corda pedal.

I did actually record damper and soft pedal samples, and still have them somewhere in the big mess of my leftover material. The soft pedal was a bit of an experiment, but the samples might be usable.

I'm flattered that you have a hard time choosing between my pianos.

I might be exaggerating it, not sure, but to me re-pedaling is an absolutely crucial feature that shouldn't depend on the music style or pianist level. I can't play a piano that doesn't support re-pedaling because it's just unnatural. I don't think it's hard to implement though? I guess you need to restart the sample from a different position based on the time elapsed between the key/pedal release and the repeated press. I guess that requires scripting and maybe not all sampler formats support scripting.

CyberGene I guess you need to restart the sample from a different position based on the time elapsed between the key/pedal release and the repeated press. I guess that requires scripting and maybe not all sampler formats support scripting.

To take a cue from robotics coding, re-pedaling should be simple if the language is time-based. But many samplers are event-based, which makes it more difficult. True, the ADSR controls involve time, but right now i can't think of a way to do it in SFZ as there are no true variables and no timers (I think). Kontakt, on the other hand, does have variables that can change with time - so i can see it being implemented there more easily.

Sofia_MZ I just want to say that your free piano VSTs are truly wonderful, not only because of your perfect sampling but also because you had the chance to find instruments in pristine shape. IMO yours are the best free piano VSTs currently available (sorry, Dore). And everything is accessible without any need for signing up or creating accounts - very user friendly. I just had to get 7-zip app in order to extract the folders (in fact, I had to extract twice, first the gz file, and then the resulting gar file).

I like the Blüthner best, and it works very well in Sforzando without any additional velocity plugin, the MIDI output from my Casio GP310 seems to be appropriate as is. The Bechstein should have had some minor maintenance for some of the higher keys, prior to sampling, their sound quickly dies away in an abrupt manner, maybe an issue with the dampers, don't know, I am not a piano technician.

All in all, a big thankyou and Saluti da Amburgo.

[deleted] Thanks for your note about decompressing. On Linux, TAR.GZ is pretty standard so that's what I went for, but I could just as easily use zipped format if that would make it easier on Windows/Mac users.

About the Bechstein, if you could indicate which keys and if that's the case at any velocity it would help.

Sofia_MZ It is the keys from c3 to g3 (or C6 to G6, if C4 is the standard middle C), and yes, I have the impression at any velocity.

[deleted] ...just wanting to be fair and "correct" my post. I found out that this decay issue of some keys comes from the settings I used in Sforzando. There is a "damping" effect and a "level" knob to control it. In order to get rid of the odd decay of some keys, one must turn the "level" down to below 40%. Sofia's samples are all fine and so is the original instrument.

Sofia_MZ I’d welcome some feedback from those who tried (and perhaps liked) my pianos, to help me set my priorities according to the needs of an actual user base.

dore_m Sympathetic Resonance - technically possible, since Garritan did it - but probably using the ARIA extensions, which are not available to any player other than Plogue/Sforzando. Difficulty level - extremely high.

jdg78 Sympathetic resonance is a huge plus if done well, and can really make things come alive, but I gather it's extremely hard to implement so I wouldn't expect you to attempt this unless you are really up for a challenge.

Sofia_MZ I don't even want to think about scripting sympathetic resonance.

I know this came out already in the past, e.g. in https://pianoclack.com/forum/d/792-pianoteq-sympathetic-resonances/16 and reference within, but then was that and this is now.

I am still curious why you don't like/try/explore if you can either learn some stuff or just use their demo and call it a day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNPVl3ZAsbY

RIP Sofia_MZ I don't even want to think about scripting sympathetic resonance.

I know this came out already in the past, e.g. in https://pianoclack.com/forum/d/792-pianoteq-sympathetic-resonances/16 and reference within, but then was that and this is now.

I am still curious why you don't like/try/explore if you can either learn some stuff or just use their demo and call it a day.

I was just being frank. While I'm having fun cutting the 2.0 releases of the libraries, my present and future interests lie elsewhere.

Sofia_MZ I was just being frank. While I'm having fun cutting the 2.0 releases of the libraries, my present and future interests lie elsewhere.

Famous last words!

For those of you who fancy the 1.0 release, I have added a section to my webpage with links to the Sourceforge files (which you wouldn't care because you already have them)

BUT

on the same page Previous releases

you will find the updated 1.1 SFZ files with the (slightly modified) half pedal and soft pedal effects, if you wish to try them.